Seasons Change
by Ronald Ulysses Swanson
Summary: Slightly AU. This is a story about embracing change, embracing your gifts and letting your light shine.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

It starts with a letter. A single, solitary letter at the top of a senior chemistry paper.

_C_

Rachel frowns. She only took chemistry because this year is meant to be about challenges and trying new things, and it was a difficult test, but she's never gotten anything lower than a B before, let alone a C. The mean, red letter stares back at her, almost taunting her.

"_I'm going to ruin your excellent 3.93 GPA," _it teases. _"Together, we'll live a life of mediocrity in this god-forsaken town where you'll live, working as a real estate agent and married to some business major at Ohio State, with two kids and a miniature schnauzer. You can forget all about New York, and NYADA, and Broadway!" _

She turns the paper over, not wanting to look at it anymore. There's only ten minutes until the end of class, so she just sits at her desk, sulking and waiting for the bell to ring.

She wonders if there's some mistake. Surely, there must be.

"_Maybe Mr Caulfield was intoxicated while marking my paper_," Rachel thinks to herself._ "It wouldn't be a surprise; teaching at this school would surely drive anyone to alcoholism."_

She snaps out of it immediately and takes three deep breaths. It's not that far into the school year, and there's time to improve. She makes a mental note to put two gold stars on her paper next time.

Rachel pulls her phone out of her pocket and sends a quick text message to her best friend Kurt, asking him to get her a soy latte and vegan brownies. She then wonders if she should, but she reasons that she doesn't have glee club rehearsals this afternoon, and anyway, she needs comfort food.

The phone buzzes immediately. _Will do. How's chemistry?_

Rachel sighs and types a response back: _disaster! I hate it! _

_Do you need one of my legendary back massages?_

Rachel smiles at the thoughtfulness of her friend and types back: _yes please! _

She doesn't even notice that the bell has gone, and it's just Mr Caulfield and herself in the room. She wonders if she should talk to him about her test, but then thinks that he might have better things to do.

Still, it couldn't hurt.

"Mr Caulfield?"

The chemistry teacher looks up. There are very few attractive teachers at this school, and he definitely isn't one of them. His balding, greying hair, combined with the Jackson Pollack-like arrangement of moles on the top of his head, secretly grosses Rachel out.

"Yes, Miss Berry?"

"I was wondering if I could discuss my paper with you?" Rachel asks.

"Okay," Mr Caulfield says, raising an eyebrow. "How did you find the test? Was it difficult for you?"

Sighing, Rachel answers in a small voice, "Yes."

"What are you finding difficult?"

"I don't know," Rachel answers, feeling pathetic. "I'm just not used to not doing well academically. I need a better grade, my Broadway dreams depend on it!"

"I see," Mr Caulfield says. "I'll tell you what I'll do: because I like your attitude, I'm going to set you up with someone to help you get the basics. Does that sound good?"

"Thank you sir!" Rachel says excitedly, making a mental note to bake him a batch of her famous sugar cookies to give to him tomorrow. She leaves the classroom and beams when she sees Kurt waiting for her with her coffee.

"I got your soy latte." Kurt says, taking Rachel's arm to link with his.

"Oh thank you! I don't know what I'd do without you!" Rachel replies, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Honey, was it really that bad?" Kurt asks, sympathetically.

"I got a _C_! I've _never _gotten a C before!"

Kurt rolls his eyes at Rachel's dramatics, but he listens to her anyway, because she's his best friend. He doesn't know what he'd do without having her as his best friend either. He recently broke up with his first boyfriend Blaine, after catching Blaine with his tongue down the throat of the Dalton Academy senior lacrosse captain. When he called Rachel, she baked him cookies and went over to his house. The two of them had a movie marathon and listened to Alanis Morrissette until the neighbours complained.

Sometimes they fight, because they're so similar and they clash about a lot of things, but they love each other, and couldn't be happier to be each other's friend.

"Would a movie marathon make you feel better? I'll let you pick the movies and we'll get that vegan popcorn you like." Kurt offers, squeezing Rachel's shoulders.

They're about to leave the school grounds when Mr Caulfield runs up behind them and calls out Rachel's name.

"Miss Berry, I have found someone to tutor you in chemistry."

Rachel smiles. "Thank you, sir."

"You're meeting your tutor at 7:30am in the laboratory." Mr Caulfield says.

"I-I am?" Rachel asks, flustered. Mr Caulfield walks off before she can say anything.

"Don't be late!" The man calls out.

Kurt raises an eyebrow. "_Chemistry tutoring? _Seriously?"

"You don't understand," Rachel replies. "I _need _my GPA! I've never had bad grades before!"

"Why don't you just swap classes?" Kurt asks.

"Because this year is about stepping _outside the box_ and trying new things!"

"But you've had that sweater since sophomore year." Kurt jokes, earning an elbow to the ribs from Rachel as they head out excitedly for their movie marathon.

~.~.~

Rachel Berry is most _definitely _ a morning person.

Most high school seniors wouldn't be energised at 7:30am, but Rachel Berry isn't most high school seniors. She's so energised that she even managed to bake fresh cookies for her new tutor.

The truth is, she's slightly nervous. She doesn't quite know what to expect, and she hopes that the tutor is nice and won't think she's slow in any way.

She parks her new car, a gift from her dads for her eighteenth birthday, and hurriedly walks towards the main building of the school. She sees that the door to her chemistry classroom is already unlocked, so she opens it.

She's dumbfounded, no, _infuriated _to see that there's a person taking a nap at one of the desks. How could this happen? Surely this person could take a nap elsewhere! Not to mention that they've created a _mess_ in the room. A pair of glasses are perched on the desk, along with a pile of textbooks.

Rachel is even more horrified when she discovers that the sleeping student is Santana Lopez, cheerleader and fellow senior.

Santana is known for two things: being the only lesbian cheerleader, and allegedly having written the "Complete Unauthorised List of Spanish Curse Words" in freshman year. Despite having been in several of Rachel's classes throughout high school, Santana has hardly spoken to Rachel. There's an unspoken hierarchy at McKinley High that prevents that from happening.

For a second, Rachel has a dilemma: should she wake Santana up gently, or should she just demand that the other girl leave so she can have her very important meeting with her tutor who she gave up her morning to meet with? Exasperated, Rachel goes with the latter.

"I have this room for a _private _meeting! Please leave or I'll call Principal Figgins!"

Rachel watches Santana jolt up from her sleep and yawn loudly. Rachel rolls her eyes; she's always thought that yawning in public and not being discreet about it is a sign of bad manners. Santana puts her glasses on and brushes her loose hair out of her face before turning to look at Rachel.

"Oh," she says, embarrassed. "Hey, Berry."

Rachel sighs, annoyed. "Santana, _why _on Earth are you taking a nap in the _laboratory_?"

"Sorry about that, had a late night," Santana responds, laughing awkwardly. "Yeah, I'm here to tutor you in chemistry."

~.~.~

**A/N: Hey guys, this is my first ever Pezberry fic. I really like their dynamic (it's pretty much the only thing I like about Glee now). I really hope you enjoy this fic. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"This has to be a mistake! Are you _joking?_" Rachel asks, her voice taking on a shrieking quality that Santana finds incredibly amusing. "Oh my Babra, you came in here to play a practical joke on me!"

"No, actually, Berry, I came here because your chem teacher thinks I have too much free time. Trust me, I'm _loving_ the idea just as much as you are." Santana retorts with an eye roll.

"Are you even _qualified?_" Rachel asks, indignant. "I am going to go and find Mr Caulfield _right now _and tell him that this is a _travesty_, and I need a tutor who is actually _qualified _and actually _knows what they're doing _and…"

Santana raises one finger and says, "Okay, here's the thing, Patti LuPone. I have a 4.0 and I've already _done _this criminally boring class. Caulfield and his booze-soaked khakis marched up to me yesterday and basically begged me to come here _this freaking early in the morning_. I'm not getting paid to do this, and I had to get the bus here and it was freezing as all hell, so for God's sake, get over yourself and sit down."

Rachel sighs, and takes a seat. She opens up her bag to get out her notes, texbook and most recent paper, the one with the dreaded C grade.

"_Don't _laugh!" She snaps, sulking as she watches Santana's eyes skim over the paper.

"Do you know your periodic table?"

Rachel scoffs. "Of _course _I know my periodic table."

"Good, cause we're going to go over it right now," Santana says, taking out a photocopy of the periodic table. She finds the symbol for caesium, points at and asks, "Is this a metal or a non-metal?"

"It's a metal," Rachel answers, rolling her eyes.

"What happens if you drop it in a glass of water?"

"I don't know, it reacts with the water or something?"

Santana pulls out her phone, opens up a video and gestures for Rachel to come and look. Caesium is dropped into a glass of water. It doesn't even take a second for light to flash and the glass to explode, water gushing out everywhere. Santana watches Rachel, trying to gauge a reaction, but there's nothing.

"Damn, tough crowd. Usually works on other people I tutor."

"How many other people do you tutor?" Rachel asks.

Santana shrugs. "A few." She goes back to skimming through Rachel's test and raises an eyebrow at one of the questions. "Do you know what the difference is between covalent and ionic compounds?"

Rachel opens and closes her mouth a few times but stays silent. This is humiliating. She actually feels _dumb, _and as she's asked more and more questions about her test, she feels progressively dumber by the minute. She decides to try a different tactic. "I baked cookies this morning. Would you like some?"

"Do they have nuts in them?"

Rachel sighs and then nods, feeling even more stupid.

"Thanks, but no thanks. All right, I'm going to need you to read over chapter 2 of the textbook, I'm going to need to grab your email address so I can send you stuff, and then I want you to learn Tom Lehrer's 'The Elements' off by heart and sing it to me by next week." Santana says, going through Rachel's test with a red pen.

"Ex_cuse _me?"

~.~.~

"Oh my _God!_" Kurt laughs hysterically.

"It's not _funny _Kurt, I was _mortified!_" Rachel whines.

"It _is _funny. Santana Lipstick Lesbian Lopez is your _chemistry tutor_? And she was _asleep_ and wearing _glasses_! It's not just funny, it's hilarious." Kurt nudges Rachel, still laughing.

"She asked me all these really _challenging _questions. I don't know, I kind of felt _stupid_."

"What did she ask you?" Kurt jokes. "The chemical formula in eyeliner?"

Rachel shakes her head. "No. She's like weirdly smart. I can't do that again, Kurt. It was too weird."

"You're overreacting. I still can't believe she actually gave you _homework_."

"I need a soy latte." Rachel whines.

"You _always_ need a soy latte. I think you have a problem."

~.~.~

**A/N: Yes, I'm aware I haven't updated in a while. I have just finished uni exams and I've been working a lot lately and therefore haven't had a lot of time to write. I try and update when I can. Hope you enjoyed this (short) chapter. I will most likely add to it in about a week when I've officially finished uni for the semester. **


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